


The Inevitable Collapse of Basch fon Ronsenburg's Will

by vinnie2757



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Minor canon divergence, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post Game, Unresolved Romantic Tension, basch tells balthier to fuck off in a very mature way, i figured i'd crosspost here, i will fight people over this trope and this ship, minor language, primarily ashe and basch being dorks, royal dorks, the princess and knight trope is my favourite, with the others alternating on turns calling them out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 11:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinnie2757/pseuds/vinnie2757
Summary: Basch has long since known that he's in love with the Princess. It would be nice, however, if everyone else didn't chime in, and you know.Ashe didn't chime in on it. He's content in his little bubble of denial, let him live in it for a while longer, please.[Basch/Ashe, originally posted on tumblr. May be updated because I am so in love.]





	1. Kiss the Hell Out of Me. Please.

They stay a day or so at Bur-Omisace, resting and recouping and gathering equipment and items before continuing on their quest. Fran makes quiet noise about the path they will have to take, and Ashe is determined to glean all the information that she can from Larsa and Al-Cid and whoever else happens to be in the immediate vicinity. It’s Ashe’s way, and as much as Basch gets that little knot in the pit of his belly when she turns her entire body to talk to Al-Cid, he keeps his mouth shut and his belly where it belongs, because that’s _his_ way. He keeps his mouth shut, because that’s what he does. It’s unfortunate, but he learnt his lesson.

Still learns his lesson, if the brawls they get into around the notice boards are any indication This isn’t to say he _deliberately_ picks fights, but when you’ve got snotty little shits bad-mouthing the fucking _princess_ , well. Of course he’s going to punch said shit in the face. It’s only right.

Obviously.

And they’re the same size as him, so it’s not like he’s not picking on someone his own size. Hell, that one Hunter was bigger than he is by a solid head, so really he’s picking on people bigger than him. Which doesn’t make it okay when it’s Ashe’s hands brushing a too-gentle Cure across his bleeding face, her fingers carefully guiding his broken nose back into place while the spell settles across his skin. He tries to seek out Penelo for curative magick these days, her hands rougher and her touch harder. There are no butterflies in Penelo’s fingertips, at least, and that is a blessing.

‘You’re in love with her,’ Balthier says that afternoon, as Basch excuses himself, briefly, from Ashe’s side to seek out sustenance and a bathroom.

‘Fuck off,’ Basch replies, because he can’t think of anything better to say, and manners are best left to the professionals.

Balthier, who had one hand on the door, intending to enter, turns back, with half a smile on his lips, and one eyebrow almost raised.

‘Silence would have been a louder answer, Basch,’ he says, and Basch turns to walk backwards, throwing a rude gesture at him. ‘Ever the diplomat, I see.’

Basch doesn’t give that a response, giving Balthier the silent answer he seems to crave, and pads off down the path towards the vendors. There were some sweet meat pastries he’d seen earlier, and he’s very interested in trying them and easing the knot in his belly, which is, of course, due to hunger.

He bumps into Vaan and Penelo on his way, who are happily playing games with some of the refugee children, given that for all Vaan desires to _know_ of what’s happening, he doesn’t want to sit in the cool dimness of the side-room when there are ball games and sunshine to be had. Penelo grabs Basch’s arm as he passes.

‘I need your help,’ she says, and points up to a tree where a ball is stuck.

Despite the call of the pastries, Basch obligingly ducks his shoulders and lets Penelo climb up so she can reach the ball.

‘What do you think of Al-Cid?’ she asks, as Basch picks his way across the slabs to get her closer to the ball. ‘He’s very handsome, don’t you think? And Ashe seems to like him.’

Basch grunts, and his fingers dig into her leg. Her boot is in the way, so if she feels anything at all, she says nothing of it.

‘He’s certainly a ladies’ man,’ Penelo continues, ‘but I don’t think he’s really Ashe’s type. I think she just likes the attention. It’s nice, for ladies to be noticed.’

He grunts again, and falls to a standstill at the perfect spot for her to grab the ball. Even after she’s got it, she rests it on his head and continues to ponder aloud. He continues to stand there, being used as a chair. It’s not the first time he’s had a woman sat on his shoulders thinking aloud, and he’s sure it won’t bet the last. It comes with the territory of having broad shoulders.  

‘Oh!’ she exclaims, when she realises she’s still perched on him and using him as a musing point, and tosses the ball over to Vaan. ‘I’m sorry, Basch; I got the ball down, you can let me down now, thank you.’

He bends his knees and carefully lets Penelo slide down his back, only straightening once she’d let go, and waits a beat before turning, giving her a chance to step away.

‘I don’t like him,’ he admits, and Penelo glances up at him.

‘What?’

‘Al-Cid. I don’t like him.’

She stares at him for a moment, clearly confused, and then a blush comes in her ears, and she laughs, a soft little giggle that makes _him_ blush. Him! A King-Slayer! Blushing because of a child laughing at him! The indignity!

Who’s he kidding, it’s hardly the most embarrassing thing to happen to him this week alone.

‘You’re sweet,’ she says, and squeezes his arm before rushing off to Vaan and the ball game without anything further to expand on this character assessment.

Basch takes it for what it is, and goes to get his pastries. If he picks up a couple for Ashe too, well, the girl’s got to eat, hasn’t she?

Can’t let the Princess starve because she’s so enraptured in her discussions.

If Balthier gives him a look when he returns with the muslin-wrapped parcel in hand, half a pastry hanging out of his mouth like some kind of savage, Basch ignores it and tries to trip the pirate. Balthier tries to trip him back. They both miss, and clap each other on the back.

Time passes, and it’s dark by the time Larsa starts to fall asleep on his arms, and Al-Cid finally calls a halt to the conversation. There isn’t much else to be said, and the party will have to move on in the morning.

Basch, for one, is relieved. He’s used to being on his feet, and suffers it in silence, because that’s what he signed up for, but he’ll be glad to take a seat, even if he won’t sleep much. He doesn’t sleep much these days, too busy watching over the party. Fran watches him sometimes, and he wonders what she thinks. She never offers, and he never asks, so they sit in silence and watch over the party until eventually Basch drifts off where he’s sat, for the few hours before daybreak and they continue onward.

‘I’d like to take a bath,’ Ashe says, as she gets to her feet, brushing pastry crumbs from her skirt and thighs, and rolls her shoulders. She’d barely moved all day, and her dark circles show it.

‘Of course, Milady,’ Basch replies, and walks ahead of her a pace or two to get the door.

Al-Cid murmurs something under his breath. Basch looks at him over Ashe’s head, and doesn’t even try to school his impression. The Rozzarian merely smiles, and bids them both a good night.

If Basch knew him better, he might give him a rude gesture too, but he’s caused enough international incidents for one lifetime. Even though he didn’t actually _cause_ the whole, King-Slaying thing, but it’s the principle of the matter. So he keeps his hands down by his sides and lets Ashe pass by. And if she passes by close enough that he can feel the warmth of her skin, well, the door’s heavy and it’s late and he’s tired, and he doesn’t need a reason to open a door the whole way, does he?

No. No, that’s what he thought.

He walks her to the bathhouse, and obligingly waits outside for her.

‘You don’t have to wait,’ she tells him, and he tells her to not fall asleep.

‘I can’t rescue you from drowning in the bath, Milady,’ he tells her, and she cracks a smile.

‘And why not? Some protector you are, Sir!’

‘It wouldn’t be proper for me to enter the bathhouse,’ he says, completely serious, and he’s trying very hard not to blush. Hopefully the darkness will disguise the fact he’s blushing.

‘Is that so?’

‘Well,’ he starts, and then stops. ‘I mean. You will – you will be naked, Princess, and that isn’t something I should see.’

‘What if I wanted you to see?’ she asks, and he chokes on his tongue. ‘You must be tired; I won’t be long.’

‘You are thirty-six,’ he tells himself when the bathhouse door has swung shut behind her. ‘You are _thirty-six_ , and you are _above_ this. Get over yourself.’

He even slaps his cheeks, like it might help. If he listens closely, in the silence of the evening, he can hear her humming to herself, the slosh of water as she moves. An eternity passes, and fireflies sparkle in the trees and against the stones. He doesn’t know why it surprises him to see them here, but it distracts him and he’ll take it.

Ashe returns to his side after an eternity that is not really an eternity, and he’s so caught up in thoughts that he’ll forget in seconds that he doesn’t notice until she touches his hand, fingertips like silk against his palm. He jolts, and half-raises the other hand, ready to swing at whatever monster had crept up on him, only to be met with her laughter.

‘You would punch your Princess?’ she laughs, and tucks her arm into his elbow. ‘You are more tired than you look, I think, Sir Knight. Perhaps we should get you to bed?’

It’s only a breath very carefully inhaled through his mouth that stops him choking on his tongue this time.

‘Perhaps,’ he agrees, because Basch is, for all his nonsense, a sensible man, and Ashe means it in a very literal sense. He is tired, therefore he needs to go to bed. That is what she means.

Her hand slides down his arm, tripping over the straps to his wrist guard, and her fingers slot between his.

‘Princess?’ he asks, and it comes out a little tighter than he intended.

‘Walk with me?’ she asks, and then her eyebrows knot for a second. ‘Unless you are truly tired, in which case, I’ll let you return to the inn.’

He’s exhausted, and he can tell by the slump of her shoulders that she is too, but she wants to walk, and so walk they shall.

‘No,’ he says, ‘no, I’m not truly tired. Where would you like to walk?’

She doesn’t seem to have thought that far ahead, given that she doesn’t immediately reply with a destination.

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘let’s just – walk. We won’t go far. It’s nice to have the peace and quiet.’

It is, and the only sound for several minutes as they walk across the plaza, hand-in-hand and step-in-step, is the sound of their footfall and their breathing. Somewhere, there is the steady trickle of water, and Ashe pauses, briefly, to listen to it. Basch waits patiently, squeezing her hand as gently as he can, and watches her face, at peace for the first time in a long while, as she listens. Her hand squeezes back, and she comes back to herself, expression soft, offering him up a smile.

‘Let us return,’ she says, ‘it’s late, and we will have to have our wits when we reach the jungle.’

‘Aye,’ he agrees, and side-steps to turn back the way they came without having to let go of her hand.

Some ways from the inn, which in reality is little more than a few rooms sectioned off in the temple, she stops and drags him to a stop to boot. He turns back, confused.

‘Milady?’ he asks, because she’s looking at him with the considered look she gives an unaware monster before she pounces, magick or spear or sword at the ready.

‘Ashe, please,’ she says, and then waits.

The silence lingers, and he eventually realises she’s waiting for him to address her by name.

‘Ashe?’ he asks, again, and she’s still looking at him like prey.

‘I would like it very much if you would kiss the hell out of me,’ she says, and then after a second’s pause, adds, ‘please.’

Over the weeks of traipsing through sewers and bogs and plains and sneaking through forests and cities and towns, Basch has learnt _very_ well to not question Ashe when she says please. She is royalty, after all, and royalty do not have to plead for their wants and wishes to be adhered to.

But he questions this all the same.

‘What?’ he asks, and can feel the slack in his jaw.

‘Oh, for the heavens!’ she exclaims and grabs him by the collar, dragging him down the half-foot between them.

It’s a sloppy kiss, unrefined and he expected better of a princess, he did. So he cups her face, gentle, _gentle_ , and eases her back so she’s not trying to knock his teeth out with hers, eases her to where their lips pillow, where he can feel the pulse of her heart under his fingertips, where he can feel the rush of air from her nose as she tries to reconcile her lungs with her heart. To think she’d flustered herself enough! Her fingers curl, a little helplessly, against the leather of his vest, and his curl in turn against the locks of hair by her ear.

They stay like that for a long moment or three, lips moving softly, like the lap of a stream against the bank, her breath slowing until almost nothing, and only when he feels her swallow does he let her go. She’s flushed, eyes like stars, and he can still feel the steadier, but still flustered, rabbit-kick of her heart against his fingertips.

‘Right,’ she says, and he can see her scrambling to gather her faculties. ‘Right, yes. Okay, that.’

Her eyelashes flutter in a dozen blinks and her lip trembles a little, red and swollen and wet, and she’s still scrambling for the words to express what’s in her eyes.

‘Heavens,’ he murmurs, and draws her face up again, ‘but not hell?’

She laughs, breathless, giddy, and her hands come to curl around his, a brief contact before she’s tangling one into his hair.

‘Indeed,’ she whispers against his lips. ‘Heavens, not hell.’

He glances over her shoulder, identifies the nearest solid object, and backs her into it by lips and careful guidance of hands alone. Her steps stumble, and she staggers, tripping over a rough edge and her heel and her breath leaves her in a whoosh when her back hits the wall. He seizes the opportunity, and steals whatever air is left in her lungs, drawing her close enough that her armour digs into his bare skin, and his into hers, and tugs her head back, just a little, just enough that he can kiss her _properly._ He is a knight, yes, but he is no gentleman, and he does not kiss like one.

Not that he hears her complaining, hitched breaths and quiet noises as she’s making, fingers clutching at whatever of him she can reach, nails digging into the back of his neck, into his shoulder blade, tugging tight enough at his hair to yank a few strands free.

‘Shit,’ he whispers, and rakes a hand through her hair, brushes the strands back, cups her neck.

‘Shit,’ Ashe replies, with a breathless laugh.

She touches his face, traces the scar on his face with shaking fingertips, cups his jaw.

‘Was that hell enough for you?’ he asks, ‘have all your devils been excised?’

For a second, she just watches his face, taking him in. And then she shakes her head.

‘No,’ she says. ‘No, I don’t believe so. Not yet. There are many hells you need to kiss out of me.’

The flush that crosses his face is very attractive, she thinks, and touches the warmth of his cheeks.

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I am slacking in my duties, then. My Queen has commanded, and I must obey.’

She smiles, angles up into him.

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘very slack indeed.’

* * *

It is some time before they return to the inn. Fran is sat by the doorway, in shadow, quiet, as Ashe trails her fingers down Basch’s arm, offering him a smile as she turns to pick her way across the sleeping bodies to her sleeping bag.

He waits until the sound of her breathing has evened out, and then he takes his seat on the other side of the doorway.

‘Not a word,’ he whispers.

‘I never said a thing,’ Fran replies, and Basch makes a rude gesture at Balthier, who snorts and rolls over, murmuring something the knight doesn’t hear under his breath.


	2. Can I Put You on My To-Do List?

It takes Larsa eighteen months to grow exhausted of Basch’s nonsense. Not just tired, not just exasperated. Exhausted. A deep in his bones exhaustion that’s threatening to keep him up at night and warrant an execution of his patience. This isn’t to say he _dislikes_ Basch; far from it, the knight-turned-Judge has some of the best advice, and freely offers any counsel he feels the young man needs. And more than that, Basch is a _friend_ ; stalwart and loyal to a fault, full of wisdom and wit and the most boggingly persistent pining that Larsa has ever seen and he has seen rich girls wanting puppies they can carry in their arms. He has _seen_ them, he knows what little rich girls can be like. He’s seen it, and it’s horrifying.

But more horrifying still is the way leaving Basch to his own thoughts will result in the Judge sitting despondently by a window and sighing like a teenager with a crush. Given the life that he had led prior to this moment of peace, which is in itself not _really_ peace, what with it being a lie he’s being made to live, taking on his brother’s name and role and being unable to present himself as his own self  -

Point is, Basch is, for all intents and purposes, at peace, and now that he has a chance to actually be at peace, he’s running the gamut of teenaged experiences. He’s thirty-seven and only now is he experiencing the sweet agony of being separated from his Love.

Larsa has never been more disgusted in all his life.

Disgusted is perhaps not the right word; in actuality, he feels something not unlike pity for the Judge, for being separated from those you love, being made to live a lie, being forced into a role you feel woefully unprepared for. It’s not fair, and it wasn’t really right of them to ask him to do it. But do it he did, and for the most part, he didn’t complain, short of a few enraged rants and plate-throwings that he’d finally allowed himself to have. Which was within his right, Larsa thinks, and he doesn’t protest Basch ranting and raving for a half-hour or so to get the build-up of tension out of his system. He goes back to his quiet complicity afterwards, and all is quiet on the Arcadian front.

And Basch is desperately lonely, Larsa finds; separated from those he calls friends for the most part, with only Larsa knowing his true identity, there are few people he can talk to.

So the eighteenth month comes and Larsa is exhausted. He loves Basch as dearly as he’d loved his brother. But he is tired, and Basch is becoming despondent. For the most part, Arcadia is running itself, repairing its damages and fixing its ills with little input from Basch.

‘You know,’ Larsa says, a week or so into this agonising eighteenth month, almost two months after Ashe’s last state visit, which had actually been her first as Queen, what with her coronation five months ago, in which several scandals were narrowly averted because one of the maids caught the Dalmascan Queen playfully kicking the behind of Judge Gabranth when she thought no one was looking. ‘I think perhaps it is time to disband the Judges.’

‘What?’ Basch asks, and turns away from the window.

Larsa has been trying to talk to him for half an hour; this is the first response he’s gotten.

He’s used to this.

And so Larsa sighs, and says, ‘I think perhaps there is a need to examine and alter the justice and enforcement system in Arcadia. Judges have been a very outdated method of law enforcement for years, and the disparity between Old Arcadia and new has given me heartache for much of my life. I would like to see things done differently. Perhaps it is time to commit to those alterations.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Basch says.

‘I’m saying get out of my house and go home,’ Larsa says, and offers Basch a beaming smile, so full of youthful innocence and pleased diplomatic victory that Basch is flummoxed.

‘My home is here.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Larsa snorts, and turns back to his proposal of a local, community-orientated law enforcement, ‘you look to Dalmasca any time you’re near a window.’

Basch doesn’t answer for several long minutes. Larsa even manages to finish a page of reading with the atmosphere, the most he’s been able to do in one sitting all morning.

‘I miss her,’ Basch offers eventually, and Larsa nods.

‘I know. She knows. She wrote to me not last week pining over you as hard as you pine for her. Her opening gambit was to ask for your health, as you had looked tired the last she saw you, and she wanted to make sure you were resting. The Queen, Basch, asking after you instead of me. Imagine that.’

Despite the tone of his voice, he’s smiling, and Larsa is an easy-going sort, he doesn’t mean anything by it. He loves Ashe as the sister he never had, and he adores that she has some happiness in Basch, and now, exhausted as he is, he’s found a way to do something about it.

So he’s doing that thing, and he just needs Basch to, you know, do it.

‘But I am not – I am employed here, my work is here, my house, my life.’

‘But your heart is not,’ Larsa tells him, and puts his pen down, gets to his feet.

His Judge is still much taller than he is, but Larsa has grown confident, and brave, and the difference feels negligible. He puts a hand on Basch’s arm, smiles at him, every bit the diplomat and beloved leader his brother was not.

‘Basch, I am ordering you. I can frame it as a diplomatic mission, if you like, but one way or another, I am having you leave Arcadia tonight to return home, and to return to your Queen.’

The Judge opens his mouth, and fights to find words to refute his Lord’s argument. But there are no words; he desperately misses Ashe, and he desperately, despite himself, misses Dalmasca, and Vaan and Penelo, and even to a degree, Balthier and Fran. He misses Dalmascan cooking, he misses the way the sun rose in Dalmasca, he misses the smell of the air in the streets, he misses –

He misses everything. Arcadia is lovely, but it is not home.

‘I don’t want to leave you alone,’ he says, because it is his only defence.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Larsa laughs, ‘thanks to your efforts, and the work of the local assassins’ guilds in alerting us of plots on my life, I am safer in the streets than I am in my own home. I will not see harm while you are away, Basch. If anything, I’ll be safer, as I’ll get more work done without you sighing like a sad puppy any time you think I'm occupied.’

‘I do not sigh,’ Basch huffs, but they both know he does.

He leaves Arcadia without complaint some hours later, his armour left behind, and only a single change of clothes in the pack on his back. The pilot of the skyferry taking him doesn’t ask any questions, because anybody with enough coin gets by without getting asked questions, and Basch has a purse full to bursting.

-0-

Rabanastre is noisy when he arrives, but Rabanastre is always noisy. For a few moments, he stands there in the middle of the street, and just soaks it in. It’s mid-afternoon, and the markets are still heaving, children still laughing and playing, musicians still playing. He absorbs it all like it’s an Esuna on his soul, and he lets out a heavy sigh, pleased, sure, but heavy. A lot of weight leaves his shoulders as he stands there, and then he makes his way through the market and up towards the palace.

He doesn’t have a plan to get in yet, given that he is technically dead and his brother has no reason to be in the Royal City with no armour, looking to see the Queen. He is not much one for personal forethought these days. He’d asked around at the aerodrome, but Vaan and Penelo were out at the moment, it seemed, so their help in seeking out the Queen was non-existent, and that left him to his own devices.

He should have gotten Larsa to write him a letter.

Too late now, though, so he heads for the walkway to the palace, and as he expects, is stopped by the guards at the end.

‘You can’t just walk in,’ says one.

‘Who do you think you are?’ asks another.

‘I’ve come to see the Queen,’ he says, ‘if you’d like to tell her I am here to see her, that would be appreciated.’

The guards look at each other, at him, and are about to laugh him on his way when a voice calls to them from above.

‘Wait!’

They look up, and find the Queen stood on the balcony, her hangs gripping the railing tightly, even from this distance.

‘Just wait right there,’ she says, ‘I will be – ‘

She pauses, and collects herself.

‘Send him through,’ she says, in her most Queenly voice, and the guards stare at her.

‘My Queen,’ they start, and she raises a hand to shush them.

‘Send him through,’ she says, and turns to head inside.

Basch nods to them, and walks as sedately as he can down the walkway and into the palace.

Ashe has her skirts about her knees and is taking the stairs two at a time, a maid behind her in a complete flap as he arrives in the main hall.

‘You’re late!’ she cries, and takes the last four steps at a jump that makes everyone in view of her hold their breath.

She’d worn low heels while adventuring, because she was brazen, but these are twice as high, and the jump was not smooth. She staggers, and Basch meets her in the middle just as she recovers.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I was not aware I was expected.’

She puts her hands on her hips, even though they very clearly want to be on his arms, in his hair, the back of his neck.

‘You are always expected,’ she says, ‘did Larsa not pass on my messages? Never mind that, you’re filthy, where have you been? You must bathe at once, you can’t be in a Queen’s presence like this, disgraceful.’

Basch is not filthy; he’s better dressed and cleaner than he has been for most of the time she’s been in his company. He almost tells her this, but then he sees her eyes flittering across the staff, and he understands. His face is not readily recognised now that he looks like his brother, but some of them were here to see the King-Slayer dragged out of the palace with his face cleaved in two.

‘Understood, Your Majesty,’ he says, and nods his head. ‘Would you be kind enough to – ‘

‘Of course,’ she says, and turns on her heel. ‘This way.’

As she passes a maid, Basch trotting along at her heels, loyal hound that he is, she asks her to prepare one of the bedrooms, in the Queen’s wing, if she’d be so kind.

‘We wouldn’t want a scandal now, would we?’ she asks, glancing at him over her shoulder.

‘Of course not, Milady.’

He watches her shoulders tighten the further along the corridor that they get, and when they reach the bathroom, they are almost totally alone. She stands in the doorway and waits until the butler is out of sight before shoving Basch into the bathroom and following him in. He kicks the door shut at the same time she grabs his hair, and they crash together, hands and lips and unsure feet, and they stumble into the wall, nearly trip over a rug, nearly fall into the bath. Basch manages to catch himself before he topples, and only barely braces Ashe’s weight.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he murmurs, because he has, and it’s only right. He hasn’t seen her since that diplomatic visit, hasn’t seen her since her coronation.

‘Uh-huh,’ she replies, and starts tugging at his clothes. ‘I wasn’t lying, you need to bathe. You smell of Archades.’

He stares at her for a second, and it gives her time to yank his tunic over his head. Without a protest, he lifts his arms, and the tunic gets flung across the room, leaving Ashe’s hands free to roam across the bare expanse of skin, paler now that there is no sun reaching it.

‘You need to get out more,’ she tells him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and is sincere about it. ‘I’ve been busy these past months. There’s been a lot on my to-do list.’

She gives him an arch look.

‘I was thinking perhaps I might put you on my to-do list.’

It’s easily the most brazen thing he’s ever said to her face. She flushes brighter than the sun, and then bursts into laughter, and it’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever heard. She kisses him once, twice, three times, and then shoves him into the bath and turns the taps on, still laughing.

‘Bathe, Sir Knight,’ she says, ‘and we’ll have a more suitable audience.’

She leaves him there, with water soaking into the seat of his trousers, and his boots still on, half in the bath. The door clicks shut behind her, and he still sits there for a few moments.

‘Can I put you on my to-do list?’ he repeats to himself, shaking his head. ‘Awful.’

Some minutes later, a maid appears with a change of clothes in Dalmascan fashion, and she flushes to see a naked man in the bath.

‘Sorry, My Lord,’ she says, and Basch flushes, nods at her. She places the clothes down on the counter, and leaves him be again.

After he’s finished bathing and has dressed, noting that the shirt does not quite button all the way, he returns to the palace proper to find Ashe sat in a side-chamber, reading over policies.

‘There you are,’ she says, and gestures. ‘Come, I’d like you to look over this.’

He tries not to notice that the angle she offers him lets him look down the front of her dress.

The policy is, in fact, a to-do list.

The only item on it is her name.

‘I think that’s acceptable,’ he says, and his fingers find the back of her neck, the most natural-feeling position in the world.

‘Good,’ she says, ‘I’m drafting up a list of your responsibilities. Larsa sent me a missive that arrived while you were in the bath, he says that you’re under my employ for the immediate future, and I shan’t have a layabout in my palace.’

His fingers twitch, and she smiles up at him.

‘I’ll add more, as time passes,’ she says, ‘but for now, I think this will do just fine.’

‘I see,’ he says, and she tugs at his shirt hem, so there’s little further discussion to be had.


	3. Can I Borrow a Kiss? I Promise to Give it Back.

When Ashe is nine, there is a festival, as there is every year. There is a performance, every year, of an overly elaborate duel, some fancy, overwrought dance with blunt swords performed by acrobats and showmen. Basch, ever loyal at her side, talks some disdain of it, but Ashe is enraptured, and insists that they go to see the duel properly. Basch talks to her father, and it takes some wrangling, but he manages to receive permission to take her for an hour or two.

Ashe would only have gone by herself, so at least this way, they know where she is.

She holds Basch’s hand the entire way home, swinging his arm as she talks and talks and talks about the performance, critiquing their technique and proclaiming that she can do it better.

Basch hums and agrees, passive as ever. They return to the castle, and he returns to his duties, her maids taking care of her.

A week later, and some distant cousin or another comes to visit. He is a few years her senior, and a snot to boot. Ashe hates him on sight, and Basch laughs at her wrinkled nose, wanting very much to rub his thumb down it to smooth it out.

‘It’s not very Princess-like,’ he tells her, and she sticks her tongue out at him. He catches it between his thumb and forefinger, and she bites.

‘I’m not a Princess,’ she tells him, and squares her shoulders. ‘I’m going to challenge him to a duel.’

‘What.’

But Ashe does not elaborate, and trots off to meet this putrid cousin of hers, all smiles and grace and lovely well-wishes.

It takes her two hours to get a sword almost as big as she is and challenge him to a duel. Her cousin, snotty and up his own arse, and sure of his abilities, accepts.

Basch despairs.

The cousin’s bodyguard tries to brag about his ward.

Basch despairs further.

The King is having the time of his life, watching his daughter big herself up, demand that the rules of the duel are beheld, that the performance is not unlike the one she and Basch had seen a week prior. One of the serving boys appears with chairs for Basch and the cousin’s bodyguard, and Basch knows Vossler will not let him hear the end of this. Nobody will ever let him hear the end of this. He is supposed to be stopping the Princess from all this brashness, at least in part. It looks like he’s actively encouraging it.

He sighs heavily.

‘Afraid your Princess will lose?’ the bodyguard asks.

Part of Basch wants to demand a duel of their own, with sharp swords, and no armour, and winner takes all.

But he is better than that, and he ignores the bastard.

While the duelling area is being set up by some very put-upon maids, Ashe trots over to Basch, pleased as punch.

‘I require a favour,’ she says, ‘as is only right.’

Basch pats himself down, but he has no pockets, and no trinkets worth handing over.

‘Nothing?’ she asks, and huffs a breath out. ‘Then I ask that I may borrow a kiss. I will return it after the duel.’

Basch despairs. One of the performers had asked a kiss of a pretty girl, a come-on he has no doubt worked, and he has no doubt there will be a baby nine months down the line.

He runs a hand over his face. The King is still having the time of his life. The aristocrats gathered are whispering.

‘You must give me a favour,’ Ashe says, and Basch wants to die.

He leans over and obligingly kisses her upturned cheek.

She wins the duel, viciously so. He does not know who taught her to jump like that. He will talk to them later.

She does not return the kiss, too busy laughing at her injured cousin.

Some decade later, as they sit at camp on the Giza Plains, looking out over the stars and the approaching storm, she mentions that very duel to him.

‘Do you remember,’ she starts, ‘when I was nine, and my bratty cousin came to visit. I duelled him and demanded a kiss to borrow as a favour?’

Basch nods, and his hands shake. He’s trying to whet her sword. His lips burn with the memory of the embarrassment kissing the girl’s cheek had brought him. Vossler has not let it go for two solid months, and only then because he embarrassed himself in another way.

‘I remember. You were very insistent.’

‘I never returned that kiss,’ she says, and he supposes she didn’t.

‘It matters not,’ he assures her, and she rests a hand on his arm, turns into him.

‘It isn’t fair to keep that which does not belong,’ she tells him, and tilts her head to kiss the corner of his mouth, as casually as if she’d missed his cheek. Ashe does not miss so casually.

She gets to her feet, and tells him she’s going to go to bed, to not stay up late; it isn’t his turn to keep watch. He promises not to.

He licks his lip, tastes the warm cocoa she’d been drinking, the tingle of the pressure of her mouth flickering across his skin. He feels like she did not merely return the kiss, but gave him one in turn. He doesn’t like the feeling of owing her more than he already does.

His gaze turns to his whetstone, to the sword in his lap. His hands are shaking. He licks his lip again. She breathes deeply behind him, the sound mingled in with the kids. Balthier and Fran are doing a patrol. When they return, he aims for calm. Misses. They do not ask, and he does not tell.

He dreams of her mouth on his, and scrubs himself raw in the stream come morning.


End file.
